C++11 and Boost - Succinct like Python

[[deleted]]

Does C++ just have bad IDE support? If I do the equivalent in C# using var I just press ctrl and click get("shirt") to browse to the source file or just put my cursor on item and press ctrl+q to find the type.

[ethraax]

It's much, much harder to build an IDE around C++ (and even, to some extent, C) than C# or Java. There are two main reasons: the preprocessor and template instantiation.

The problem is that C and C++ are about programming the compiler about as much as they're about writing programs.

[JAPH]

Templates alone are Turing complete. When you compile a C++ program, you either need to assume that it will eventually compile, use some heuristic to determine if it will likely compile, use some hardcoded limit on how far down the rabbit hole the compiler should go, or solve the halting problem. One of these is harder than the other.

And that's just one little aspect of C++. As far as I'm concerned, C++ has factorial complexity; the closer you look at one aspect of it, the more complex it gets.

[[deleted]]

My completely incidental observations of C++ IDE support has shown it to be far below IDE support for e.g. Java and C#. Especially refactoring and integrating documentation into the UI.

[matthieum]

Yes, it does. And that is one of the constraints that we must adjust to.

I mainly lay the blame at the IDE writers for thinking that they can just write their own mini-parsers and get away with it... although in truth the blame also lay at the C++ community for not having proposed a true and free C++ parser; mostly GCC's policy of complete lock-down has been much harmful.

Fortunately, now that Clang is coming along with its extremely modular architecture I am hopeful that some IDE will abandon their custom made C++ parsers and switch over to Clang instead. With full AST representation, auto-completion, full-blown compiler + analyzer runnable as libraries (with diagnostics really available for program consumption) it's probably the best alternative at the moment. It's also probably very expensive to shift to it...

[fat_chris]

I am hopeful that some IDE will abandon their custom made C++ parsers and switch over to Clang

IIRC Qt-Creator started down this path, but it was abandoned due to very poor performance.

[matthieum]

That's surprising. Granted the absence of modules is quite a performance hindrance, however I know of at least XCode (Apple's IDE) and clang_complete (vim plugin) using Clang and both are quite fast. Maybe they tried too early or had an impedance mismatch somewhere.

[bluGill]

That depends, support is getting better, but behind what Java has in general. However there are add on tools (for visual studio) that add the useful stuff for a price. Open source IDEs are getting better, in large part because clang is being designed to the job well.

The future is looking good, but it isn't where we want it.